


Petal-Soft Love

by Stylish_Racoon



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hanahaki Disease, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 15:38:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17728004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stylish_Racoon/pseuds/Stylish_Racoon
Summary: He looked at the floor around the chair of his desk. There was a whirlpool of petals and he was right in the middle of it.In his lap, a flower with pink and orange petals beamed up at him, vicious but innocent.





	Petal-Soft Love

It all started during the chill of a winter's night, when the flowers had shrunk away under piles of snow.

Daiki stared at the petal that was almost getting lost in the enormity of the palm of his hand. It was pink, it was warm, it was spread wide on his skin like a lover, waiting, but also mocking him in a mysterious way he couldn't quite put his finger on. _Where did it come from_ , he wondered as he glanced around his room, at the glowing stickers of planets and the posters of his favorite models on the walls, at the closed window which refused entry to the cold wind from outside.

 _There wasn't a way in_ , he realized.

He coughed again, shivering even under layer, under layer, under layer of blankets. Winter was always bad for him when he was sitting still and not running in a court, and his mother scarcely accepted to turn the heat on, as it was expensive -- or so she claimed.

Shaking his head, Daiki tossed the petal in the trash can near his desk and turned to the other side, forgetting about it.

The petals never forgot about him, though. They followed him through sunny skies and storms, like a dog following its master from Heaven to Hell, to his school and practice and home, littering every surface he touched -- his desk at home, his desk at school, his bag, his uniform, his pillow, his computer and the plates while he ate.

No one had noticed. It would be embarrassing if they did. They would mock him, call him a romance anime protagonist who was followed by sakura petals and stardust and everything nice. So Daiki shoved them in his pockets, he trashed them in the nearest bin he found -- anywhere was fine in order to not been seen by anyone.

He never told anyone either. Who would have believe him? Only an idiot would.

"Petals?"

Daiki nodded. He adjusted the blanket around him better. "Yeah, I keep finding petals everywhere I am."

Kagami stared dead on at his camera, as if he was staring in Daiki's eyes. It was the closest to that they could get through a video call.

"Have you been carrying around flowers or something?"

"No, idiot," Daiki scoffed, "That's the thing -- I've been finding them everywhere, even though I'm nowhere near flowers. There ain't no flowers to begin with! Fucking winter destroyed them all."

Kagami made a twirl with his chair, like he always did when he was (pretending to be) thinking. The pout of his lips was more prominent at times like this, the brows that split on either end inching closer to each other over the straight slope of his nose. Daiki always felt a pull at his lips when he looked like that, because he looked like an idiot and telling him that would get a rise out of him and Daiki lived to see him fired up.

"Well, I guess it's just a coincidence," Kagami said after a while. Then he scowled. "And _you're_ the idiot."

"Great comeback. Good job, Bakagami."

"Shut up, Ahomine," he said, but he wasn't mad anymore. He wore a hint of smile and Daiki's chest started to hurt. It wasn't a lot, but it was noticeable. He felt himself smile back too.

"How's Los Angeles?"

"Sunny, like always. Yesterday it was a bit rainy and everyone lost their shit about it, but it's sunny today." He paused, cocking his head to the side. "How's Japan?"

Daiki rolled his eyes. "Can't you fucking see? I'm literally buried under blankets."

Kagami laughed, loud and rowdy and throaty and genuine, and Daiki's chest gave him another stab at the sound of it. "Has it snowed already?" Kagami asked.

"Everything has been white since December."

"Damn. You hate the snow."

"You hecking know it."

Then there was silence -- Kagami typing something on his phone and Daiki watching him before going to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, because it was always like that with them. Because it was always comfortable, because neither took more than what the other was willing to give at any given moment.

Because whenever Daiki returned, Kagami was always there waiting for him.

"So," he started, taking a sip from his tea, "Coming back in the summer?"

Kagami put down his phone and nodded. "In July, yeah."

"Good," Daiki said. Then he grinned. "I miss wiping the court with your ugly face."

Kagami frowned. "That's my line, stupid."

"As if that ever happened."

"It has!"

When Kagami started yelling, Daiki closed his ears and started shouting in gibberish. It only earned him a middle fingers and his mother yelling at him to shut up from the living room, but his sides were hurting with laughter, so it was worth it.

"So, did you get a girlfriend yet," Daiki asked as soon as they had settled down.

Kagami shrugged. "No. I mean -- I don't know."

Daiki raised an eyebrow. "You don't know?"

"Yeah."

"Is there someone you like?"

Kagami scratched the back of his head and his eyes weren't meeting the screen Daiki was in. "I meet interesting people every day, so I'm not sure yet," he said in the end.

Daiki felt a stab in his chest again, but this one was stronger than anyone he had felt before. He coughed and coughed, he coughed until his throat was raw, until he couldn't breathe, until his lungs were empty but somewhat full at the same time.

Was he drowning?

"Jesus, Aomine!" Kagami's voice echoed through the speakers, over the blood singing in Daiki's ears, "Oi, get it together!"

Daiki took a deep breath, pushing out the water from his lungs. Tears were streaming down his eyes from the strain and Kagami's figure on the other end of the video call had moved closer to the camera. A crease had formed between his eyebrows and Daiki shook his head, voice hoarse, "M'fine."

"You don't sound fine," Kagami pointed out, "That cold has put you down completely. You should rest."

Daiki nodded. His head was pounding. Kagami's worried voice resonated in his head even when he turned his laptop off and shut the lid. He looked at the floor around the chair of his desk. There was a whirlpool of petals and he was right in the middle of it.

In his lap, a flower with pink and orange petals beamed up at him, vicious but innocent.

 

~*~

 

"Hanahaki Disease?"

The doctor offered a small smile. "It's the disease of unrequited love," he said, "The physical manifestations of it is flowers growing in the lungs. But that's not physiological, so your breathing is jeopardized."

Daiki touched his chest, frowning. "But I'm not in love with anyone."

The doctor blinked at him. Then the smile returned on his face. "Maybe you haven't figured it out yet."

Daiki's frown only deepened.

"There is treatment for it," the doctor continued, "To surgically remove the flowers from your lungs. But it'll make you forget all about your feelings towards them and you won't be able to love them like that again."

Daiki bit his lower lip. He twirled his thumbs around one another.

"Or you can confess your love to them. Maybe the feelings are mutual, which is what cures the disease." Then his face grew stern. "But if they aren't, the disease is fatal so surgery is necessary."

At that, Daiki's stomach fell in his belly. "I will die?"

"If not treated, the disease has one hundred percent mortality."

His stomach plummeted in his belly. Daiki licked his lips. "How long do I have?"

"From months to years. It's always unspecific. But I recommend you book a surgical appointment, unless you figure things out soon."

Daiki gritted his teeth and nodded at his doctor, promising to call as soon as possible.

Suddenly, he was in a hurry.

 

~*~

 

"Satsuki?"

"Hm?"

Daiki took a bite off his chocolate cookie, relishing its sweet flavor even if it mingled with the bitterness of petals constantly found under his tongue or between his teeth and cheeks. He washed them all down his throat with warm cinnamon tea.

"Do you think I can fall in love?" he then asked.

Satsuki choked once the orange juice she had been sipping on went down the wrong pipe, one hand clamping in front of her mouth, the other slapping against Daiki's forehead. "Wh-What's wrong with you again?!" she mustered up between fits of cough, "Are you sick?!"

Daiki knocked her hand away and scoffed. "Stop being stupid and answer my damn question!"

She stared unblinkingly at him for seconds that felt a lot like centuries, then she shifted on her seat. Her pouty lips pulled towards each other in a thoughtful line. "Isn't that something you should know by yourself?" she said.

"Well I don't," Daiki retorted dryly, "That's why I'm asking you. Well, whatever, forget about it."

"Dai-chan, is there something wrong?"

Her eyes were full of worry and it was getting worse the quieter Daiki was. He took a deep breath, forcing the petals away from his throat and as quickly as he could, he told her everything from the beginning.

She was crying by the end of it.

Daiki handed her a handkerchief, waiting for her to collect herself before he told her more. "It's at the final stages too," he said, "I cough up whole fucking flowers now."

"Dai-chan..."

She wailed and he rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Satsuki. I'm not going to die; it's treatable."

"Then why don't you treat it?!"

"Because I wanna know who it is!" Daiki shouted. When heads turned to their direction, he slouched lower in his seat. "I love someone and I'm dying because of it and I don't know who the bastard is. As soon as I figure it out, I'm giving them an ass-whooping, that's for sure."

He said it to lighten up her spirits, but it was futile. Tears streamed down her cheeks like rivers and she tried, she tried hard to hide them, but she couldn't. "Does anybody else know?" she whispered.

"Mom, dad...and now you." Daiki tightened his expression. "I'd like to keep it that way."

"I won't tell anyone."

"Especially not Tetsu."

He saw her hesitating for a second, but then she nodded. "Of course. He'll be so worried. He cares about you so much."

"I know."

Satsuki's features marred. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Daiki coughed and hissed at the ache in his chest, wiping the petals off his palm before Satsuki saw them. "If I haven't figured it out within a month, I'm doing the surgery."

His words seem to bring her some comfort. She put down the soaked handkerchief and straightened her back. "You told me for a reason," she said, "What's the reason?"

Daiki took a sip from his tea, relishing the soothing effect on the soreness of his throat. "I want you to tell me what being in love feels like."

"That's not very easy to describe."

"Try. Please."

A new round of tears gathered in her eyes, but she sniffed them away before they could spill. "So," she started, voice quivering, "Being in love is like...flowers growing in your chest."

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"No. It's exactly that," she said seriously, "But not _only_ that... When you're in love, that person gives you butterflies in your stomach and flowers in your lungs, their smile reminds you of the sun itself and their voice, their laughter, is the most beautiful song you've ever heard of." Satsuki sighed and her face was redder than Daiki had ever seen it before. "They are always somehow in your mind, when you want to say a joke or when you want to do something fun, it's always them you want to call first, it's -- that's the best description I can give you."

Daiki stared out of the coffee shop's window, to the street nearby, to the cars they came and went, to the people that rushed or strolled on the pavements, to the friends that laughed with each other and the lovers that held each others' hands. The snow had started to melt at last, and the droplets dripped on the pavement, drip drip drip, and Daiki counted them, he found comfort in them, unlike the words Satsuki had just spilled for him. He let go of a long sigh and turned to her.

"There's no such a person for me."        

Satsuki offered him a small smile. "Knowing you, your love for them goes probably hand-in-hand with basketball."

He snorted. "Don't be stupid, Satsuki. What does basketball have to do with anything?"

"Isn't basketball what you love the most?"

Daiki opened his mouth, but his chest swelled before any word made it out. His throat filled with flowers, with petals, soft and fragile but always so deadly, and he coughed them up, he coughed loudly, he coughed enough to get attention on him. Satsuki ran to his side like a mother would, hiding him from the crowds while she soothed a hand up and down his back, whispering words of encouragement.

When Daiki looked at the napkin he was holding, it was stained with petals in the color of blood. Satsuki gasped, but she said nothing.

He crumbled it in his palm and out of her sight immediately.

 

~*~

 

It was nine in the morning on a Sunday because Kagami lived in Los Angeles and Daiki couldn't kill him for waking him up so early to tell about his bullshit life and the matches against the formidable opponents that didn't reach Daiki's talent halfway.

The Disease got worse in the mornings and Daiki desperately tried to hide it behind a steaming mug, behind the tea with lemon and honey his mother made for him to relax his sore throat, but the cough was noisy, it was rowdy and it had its clutches on Daiki worse than any other day.

"Hey, are you really okay? You sound like you're dying."

Daiki stared at the blood-stained flower in his lap and smirked at the irony. He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, caring to keep it away from the camera. "I won't die before you shithead. Gotta beat you up on one-on-ones first."

"Make sure you get better until the summer," Kagami smirked, "I won't go easy on you because you're sick though."

"I'd defeat you even in my deathbed, try me."

But instead of the usual witty response, Kagami tipped his head back and laughed. He laugh that loud, that obnoxious and throaty laughter of his, his eyes wrinkling at the corners and his palm slamming against his knee repeatedly, and it was then Daiki understood what Satsuki had been talking about -- about the smile, that simple expression of joy that suddenly reminded him of the sun during the summer, about the flowers that bloomed in his chest, because they did, the bloomed and bloomed, again and again, faster than ever before, as if they were in a hurry to choke Daiki to death, and maybe they managed to because Daiki doubled over and gasped for air until he threw up the garden in his lungs.

"Aomine. Oi, Aomine!"

Daiki leaned back in his chair, wiping drool or blood or both from his lips as he stared at the ceiling. It was always Kagami he called first when he wanted to pass good news, it was always Kagami he texted a stupid joke first, it was Kagami, Kagami, Kagami, Kagami and his love for basketball, Kagami who made him feel alive when he was convinced he was dead -- it was Kagami who was killing him softly all this time.

He called his name again and Daiki resurfaced from the water he had been drowning in. With blurry eyes, he tried to focus at the screen, but other than the crease between Kagami's stupid-looking eyebrows, he could see nothing else.

"Aomine," Kagami started, "You're really fucking sick -- go to the hospital, please."

"Kagami."

He said it like that, softly, barely above a whisper, testing it on his tongue, tasting it and deciding it was his favorite name to say.

"What? Are you dying?"

He said like that, like a serious joke, light-hearted but worried at the same time.

Daiki snorted and licked his lips before he continued. "Kagami, I like you."

"Oh, fuck, are you actually dying?"

This time Daiki laughed, but it was weak and gurgled and full of flowers cluttering his throat. "Stupid," he scoffed, "Listen to me. I am in love with you."

The other line submerged in silence. Daiki stared at the screen of his laptop, watching carefully for a change in Kagami's expression, for a hint, for something -- Kagami was always so easy to read, why was his face suddenly harder than a stone? Minutes ticked by painfully slow, painful because for the first time in his life, Daiki cared about the words that came out of Kagami's mouth, painful because the tree sprouting in his lugs was prodding his ribcage with its branches.

Kagami's lips trembled. "What?" he asked and he sounded breathless.

Daiki dropped his head on his desk and spit out petals. "Don't make me repeat that, it's fucking embarrassing."

"How..." A pause. "How is that possible?"

"Fuck do I know," Daiki said, "I don't control my fucking feelings. But it's fine, if you don't feel the same, it's fucking fine. I just wanted to say it to get it off my chest."

"I-It's not that," Kagami stammered and when Daiki sneaked a glance at him, he was as red as his hair. "I'm...I'm a bit shocked. I'll need some time to think about it, okay?"

Daiki laughed because it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. "You and thinking don't go together well, stupid," he said.

"Shut up and be serious for five fucking seconds -- okay?"

"Do whatever, Kagami. I'll wait."

Daiki wished he could say forever -- because he would wait forever. But the Disease wouldn't. Kagami had to answer him quickly before he died. But there was no way Daiki could charge him with such a thing and then expect a genuine answer, so he chose to keep his secrets, to keep his Disease hidden from the person who gave it to him.

_He didn't want a love out of pity._

Kagami ended the call without a simple goodbye and Daiki switched off his laptop, he switched off his phone, he switched off his brain and flopped on his bed, fleeing under his comforter with nature in his lungs and lead in his heart.

 

~ * ~

 

A week passed and Kagami had yet to reply.

Daiki couldn't wait anymore. Getting out of bed was nearly impossible, walking to school was impossible, let alone playing basketball. He laid on his bed, coughing up flowers and blood and soaking in his mother's tears, with an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and a doctor urging him to take the surgery daily on the phone.

He wouldn't die for romance. Even if that meant he'd never get to feel the same way for Kagami again, even if Kagami's smile wouldn't illuminate his world like a second sun again, even if he'd never notice the wrinkles around Kagami's eyes or the crease between his eyebrows when he was worried, he'd take it. Because Kagami was his friend, he was his light, the adrenaline that made his blood sing, he was his punching bag and his stress relief, he was everything and then some, and Daiki would love him again, he would notice all the things about him again, he would love them all again even if no more flowers bloomed in his chest, because Kagami was his best friend and Daiki was a lot of bad things, but he loved his friends.

He just wouldn't be _in love_ with him.

Besides if he died, Kagami would be sad. Daiki knew he would be. And Kagami mourning over his grave, then blaming himself for the rest of his life, wasn't an option.

 _It's okay if you don't love me back_ , he typed a night before the surgery, _I will stop loving you soon, so let's be friends again._

Kagami didn't reply and Daiki didn't expect him to. He threw his phone away and buried himself under the bed sheets, spitting petals and flowers and stems in a bucket his mother placed next to his bed. She walked in his room to check on him every hour, she stopped by to caress his hair out of his eyes, to offer him a smile, to remind him that he wasn't alone, that she wouldn't let anything bad happen to him before the surgery and he assured her in return that he wasn't going to die just yet.

The doorbell rang as his mother had just wished him a good night and closed the door of his room behind her. Frowning, Daiki sat up on his bed -- who was visiting them so late in the night, who in their right minds rang a bell with such zeal. Daiki wobbled out of the bed and opened the door to his room at the same time his father opened the front door of their house.

He saw a human in the size of a tower, he saw a mop of red hair and stupid-looking eyebrows. He heard a voice hurried and soft, but it was a voice he would recognize even if he had lost his hearing completely.

"Kagami," Daiki breathed easier like he had breathed in a long, long time.

Three pairs of eyes fell on him and his mother was the one who moved first, ready to scold him for getting out of bed, but he stopped her and sought support on the doorframe. His gaze bored into Kagami's slowly widening eyes -- it was the first time he saw Daiki in that state, pale and weak and slouching more than normal.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked.

"We had to talk, you know that," Kagami said calmly, and Daiki closed his eyes, letting his voice wash over him and fill him to the brim with flowers and trees and birds and butterflies for the last time.

"Let him in," Daiki exhaled and turned on his heel, walking inside his room.

"Daiki--"

"Just let him in mom, please. He came all the way from LA."

She bit his lower lip, but nodded reluctantly. Without missing a beat, Kagami stomped all the way to Daiki's room, shutting the door behind him and grabbing Daiki by the biceps. His russet eyes were flaring with emotions, emotions Daiki had and hadn't seen before, but he was too tired to read them. Kagami's scent wafted over him from their proximity and took a deep breath in, cherishing the way it hurt him for the last time.

"You could have just called," he said.

Kagami squeezed his biceps more. "What I had to say couldn't be said on the phone."

"You're hurting me, asshole."

"Sorry," he said, but his grasp eased only an ounce. "Why?" he then asked, "Why are you so sick?"

"Look around you."

For the first time since his sudden arrival, Kagami peeled his eyes off of Daiki's face. Daiki didn't count three seconds before he saw all color drain from Kagami's face. "Wh-What's all this?"

Daiki trotted to his bed, stepping on petals and destroying bloodied flowers on his wake. "This," he said, motioning to the destroyed garden on his bedroom's floor, "Is Hanahaki Disease."

"Hanahaki..." Kagami's voice trailed off in a whisper that broke at the sight of bloody handkerchiefs. "I did this to you?"

Daiki rolled his eyes. "My feelings did this to me. You're not to blame, stupid," he said, "Don't feel guilt or whatever. I'm having the surgery tomorrow to remove them, so I'll live." Then he added, chuckling, "Wouldn't die for an idiot like you."

But Kagami wasn't laughing. He was scowling, he was pinching his bottom lip, he huffed and paced, until he said, "But if you remove them, you won't love me anymore."

"That's kind of the point, idiot."

"B-But..." Kagami's lower lip trembled and his eyes filled with tears. "I love you too, why would you--"

There was silence as Kagami's voice trailed off, but the words he had just spoken rang in Daiki's ears, like the echo in caves, over and over, until his brain processed them fully. He blinked, slowly. "You what?"

"I love you too!" Kagami exploded like a volcano, like a dying star, but lowered the tone of his voice when he realized. "I, uh, I mean, I didn't realize up until a few days after you told me, then I was looking for flights to come to Japan, but there was none available until the one I took three days ago--"

He trailed off, face as red as his hair and twisted in his effort to say what he wanted, but couldn't because he was an idiot.

Kagami pushed both hands in his hair and ruffled it up, then squared his shoulders and grabbed Daiki from the shoulders, shaking him lightly. "It's always been you," he said and his eyes were spitting fire. "I didn't dare admit it to myself because you're my friend and you're a dude and I know how you are with girls, you like 'em _that way_ and you're a pervert about it, so I thought you were just a very good friend to me, which, well, it's true, but it's not only that, I was wrong, holy fuck I was wrong, so I had to see you after this--" He lowered his gaze. "I... I wasn't thinking."

Daiki shuddered and face-palmed, trying, but failing, to convince himself that this was stupid and not the most romantic, taken-out-of-chick-flicks thing anyone had ever done for him. "And taking a plane to come see me was less troublesome than picking up your damn phone to call?" he asked weakly.

"I couldn't have said all this on the phone," Kagami argued. He squeezed Daiki's shoulders. "And now I see you're...you're fucking sick because of me, holy shit, holy fucking shit Aomine, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, I love you too, you're an idiot and the biggest asshole I know, you're cranky and rude, but you lend me a hand when I've fallen, you stand in front of me where there are dogs around, you're my best friend and I also want you to be my boyfriend, so say yes and go on a date with me."

He paused, biting his lower lip. "When you start feeling better, that is," he then added.

"You're the biggest fucking idiot I've ever met in my entire fucking life," was all Daiki could say in his complicated state.

"Took the words right out of my mouth," Kagami shot back. Then, sternly, he added, "I won't let you die. And I won't let your feelings die either."

Daiki groaned, but his face was burning. "Look at the fucking clown I fell in love with."

"I prefer hero," Kagami said as he wrapped his arms around Daiki, holding him close to stop him from falling apart.

Tears leaked out of Daiki's eyes, soaking Kagami's shirt. "Fuck you," he breathed. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you."

"I'll take you on a date first."

Daiki laughed at that because Kagami had said it as a joke, because he could finally laugh, because the pain in his chest had stopped, because he could breathe easier now that the flowers in his chest started to wilt and disappear.

When Kagami kissed him soft on the lips, his lungs filled with water before they filled with air and Daiki finally understood -- the flowers weren't wilting. Kagami was plucking them one by one and keeping them for himself, because they were for him; they had been for him since the beginning. It was always like that with them, a constant push and pull, a give and take, because that's what love was, it hurt and it saved, and that was who Kagami was for him -- a stepping stone in his torrent of emotions, a savior, a true hero who saved his love for basketball when he arrived, guns blazing and took his breath away, and now, he once again saved him by returning that breath in his lungs.

Kagami spent the night in his bed, holding him tight and kissing the back of his neck when Daiki coughed up the remnants of spring.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, Daiki could finally sleep.

And when he woke up, there was a bouquet of flowers next to his pillow -- a stupid joke Kagami wanted to crack on his expense, but Daiki laughed anyway because the flowers Kagami made bloom inside of him were finally in his hands and not in his throat.

**Author's Note:**

> I was informed that there were no hanahaki disease fics for the kids and decided to change that. This is half-a-day's word vomit, please overlook any mistakes you see.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
